Juror: 'Toughest two weeks of my life'

Thursday

The jury that convicted Robert LaPointe of operating a boat under the influence was sharply divided over just how responsible he was for the crash that killed two people on Long Lake last summer.

The jury that convicted Robert LaPointe of operating a boat under the influence was sharply divided over just how responsible he was for the crash that killed two people on Long Lake last summer.

At the outset of deliberations, eight members of the jury felt strongly that LaPointe, 39, of Medway, Mass., should be convicted of manslaughter, but four were adamant that the state had not proved its case, said one of the jurors who sat through two weeks of intense testimony and arguments.

After hours of sometimes contentious debate, jurors remained fixed in their positions.

"It's been the toughest two weeks of my entire life," said juror Joe Ouellette.

"Making the decision about someone's future, and obviously, Suzanne (Groetzinger) and Terry (Raye Trott) were killed. How do you justify either way? You're not supposed to get emotionally involved, but we're all human. We really are.

"This is what the four were thinking: How do you blame someone for a tragic accident?" said Ouellette, one of those who voted not to convict LaPointe of manslaughter but who sided with the others in convicting him of aggravated operating under the influence in a watercraft.

The absence of a stern light on Trott's boat was a key part of the deliberations.

"The bottom line is, we didn't want to put blame on Trott's boat, but how many boats did (LaPointe) hit with the light on?" Ouellette said.

"Two people have already died. How do two wrongs make a right?"

The jury split on the two manslaughter charges and on a charge of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon. On the latter, several jurors reasoned that being guilty of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon would automatically suggest manslaughter.

The jurors listened to hours of testimony, with wardens, accident reconstructionists and others painting a picture of an unsafe boater, heavily intoxicated and driving much too fast in the darkness of the lake that night.

Jurors heard form defense witnesses who raised questions about much of the state's evidence, about how much LaPointe had to drink and about how fast he was really going.

When they retired to the jury room to discuss the evidence, the jurors had a large sheet on which they listed the facts they could agree on.

"No one was really sure how much he had to drink," Ouellette said. LaPointe claimed he had three beers that day, which jurors did not believe. But there were questions among some of them about the reliability of the blood sample, which showed an alcohol content of 0.11 three hours after the crash.

Jurors could agree that LaPointe drank somewhere between four and six beers over the course of the day, Ouellette said.

They were unpersuaded by a nurse's testimony that LaPointe asked her to substitute her blood for the test, because the nurse did not remember other key details, Ouellette said.

They also did not have a precise sense of how fast LaPointe's boat was going at the time of the collision. They reasoned that it was somewhere between the 30 mph LaPointe said and the 55 mph that accident reconstructionists proposed, Ouellette said.

Then the jurors had to consider the wording of the law.

Ouellette said the law on aggravated drunken operation states that a boater with any alcohol impairment is guilty of aggravated operating under the influence if a serious injury or death results. Even if LaPointe had very little to drink, it would be hard to say he was not at all impaired, Ouellette said, noting that even social drinkers could find themselves in a similar situation.

To convict LaPointe of manslaughter, the jurors would have to agree that his behavior was a gross deviation from the conduct a reasonable person would follow under the same circumstances.

"What's a gross deviation?" Ouellette said.

Determining what a reasonable speed is would depend on the conditions and who was at the wheel. In LaPointe's case, he had 15 years of boating experience and was traveling down the middle of the lake. It was night, but he could expect that other boats would have lights or some horn or whistle to alert people to their presence, Ouellette said.

Jurors were friendly with each other during the trial, Ouellette said, but once their differences became clear during deliberations, arguments became heated and animosity set in, he said.

"When the majority talked to the minority, they would talk down to us like we were not intelligent," he said.

By yesterday afternoon, tempers were short. Some members were in tears because LaPointe was not been convicted of manslaughter.

The judge complimented the jury for its work, saying members asked good questions and functioned as the system intended, Ouellette said.

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